RON PAULINO
4/21/81; NDFA '97; Dominican Republic
R/R; 6-3, 190
| Level |
BA |
OBP |
SA |
AB |
2B |
3B |
HR |
BB |
K |
SB |
CS |
| 1999 R |
.253 |
.319 |
.410 |
83 |
2 |
4 |
1 |
8 |
19 |
1 |
2 |
| 2000
A |
.289 |
.354 |
.415 |
301 |
16 |
2 |
6 |
27 |
71 |
3 |
2 |
| 2001 A+ |
.290 |
.353 |
.392 |
352 |
16 |
1 |
6 |
36 |
76 |
4 |
1 |
| 2002
A+ |
.262 |
.321 |
.412 |
442 |
26 |
2 |
12 |
39 |
87 |
2 |
1 |
| 2003 AA |
.226 |
.283 |
.390 |
159 |
6 |
1 |
6 |
12 |
35 |
0 |
2 |
| 2003
A+ |
.235 |
.308 |
.309 |
81 |
3 |
0 |
1 |
8 |
8 |
1 |
0 |
| 2004 AA |
.285 |
.344 |
.480 |
369 |
23 |
2 |
15 |
32 |
62 |
3 |
2 |
| 2005
NL |
.500 |
.600 |
.500 |
4 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
| 2005 AAA |
.315 |
.372 |
.538 |
273 |
18 |
2 |
13 |
26 |
48 |
3 |
0 |
| 2005 AA |
.292 |
.350 |
.435 |
168 |
6 |
0 |
6 |
15 |
30 |
3 |
0 |
| 2006 NL |
.310 |
.360 |
.394 |
442 |
19 |
0 |
6 |
34 |
79 |
0 |
0 |
| 2006 AAA |
.241 |
.313 |
.345 |
29 |
3 |
0 |
0 |
3 |
8 |
1 |
0 |
| 2007 NL |
.263 |
.314 |
.389 |
457 |
25 |
0 |
11 |
33 |
79 |
2 |
2 |
After spending years in the shadow of prospects like J.R. House and Ryan Doumit, Paulino established himself in 2006 as the Pirates' regular catcher. He had a very good year with the bat for a rookie catcher and showed some promise defensively, while the expected regular, Doumit, struggled with injuries and at the plate. Unfortunately, Paulino took a huge step backward in 2007.
Paulino looked promising early in his career, after reaching full season ball relatively quickly. After playing only briefly in short season ball, he started 2000 as J.R. House's backup at Hickory, but played so well he eventually shared C/DH duties with House. Despite a good 2001 season at Lynchburg, the Pirates sent him back there for 2002. He was a Carolina League All-Star in both 2001 and 2002, but seemed to stall offensively. The Royals selected him in the Rule 5 draft after the 2002 season, but he didn't make their roster and was returned to the Pirates. He started 2003 in AA, but aside from showing decent power didn't hit well. A demotion to Lynchburg didn't help; I've seen comments that he played hurt, but don't know whether that's accurate. Back at Altoona in 2004, he had a breakout season, significantly increasing his power while still hitting for average. It was a good enough season to get him added to the 40-man roster despite the team's depth in catchers. With Doumit ahead of him, Paulino started 2005 back in AA, then moved up to AAA to replace Doumit. He got hot there, hitting in the mid-.300s for much of the season, with very good power, until he tailed off some at the end.
Paulino started 2006 back at Indianapolis, but got called up when Doumit got hurt in mid-April and easily took the starting job from the struggling Cota. The Pirates' young starting pitchers got off to a horrible start in the first few weeks, but started turning things around about when Paulino arrived. The staff's improvement spurred a lot of talk about catcher's ERA (CERA) and the Pirates credited Paulino for the turnaround. This is nonsense. The staff's ERA improved from 5.30 in April to 3.89 in May partly due to increased experience and partly due to the normal ups and downs of a season, which continued after that month. If Paulino was the reason for the nice showing in May, then he must also have been at fault for the staff's 5.60 ERA in June. Or, of course, CERA could just be bunk. Zach Duke and Paul Maholm both pitched far better in 2005 with Doumit and Cota catching them, but that seems to have escaped many people's notice, too.
In
any event, Paulino's defense was spotty. He threw well, catching 36% of base stealers, but that was due in part to the preponderance of LHPs on the staff, including two—Duke and Maholm—who have outstanding pickoff moves. He has a strong arm but tends to be scattershot with it, accounting for his total of 11 errors, tied for the second-most in the majors. Paulino also was among the leaders in passed balls. For a rookie none of this is unusual, but he also was absolutely awful at blocking pitches. Often he did little more than stab at outside pitches with his glove.
Offensively, Paulino had an impressive season, adapting almost immediately to major league pitching and posting one of the highest averages for a rookie catcher in many years. He didn't draw a lot of walks, but he drew enough to post a very good OBP, and his K total was reasonable. What was lacking was power. At one point it looked like he'd start hitting for more, as he belted three HRs in one series in Chicago, but he proceeded to get just one extra base hit over the next five weeks. He has a slow bat, so it may not be realistic to expect him to hit for the power he did in the minors.
In 2007, everything fell
apart. After a big spring that had the Pirates expecting a breakout season, Paulino went into a deep slump, hitting below the Mendoza line until late April and 216/265/337 through mid-June. He came around in the second half, batting 296/353/437 after the All-Star break. He continued to struggle badly with RHPs, though, as he hit 218/267/327 against them for the season, compared to 407/462/593 against LHPs. His problems may have been the result of him developing the habit of bailing out away from the plate on every swing. The habit was so severe that he had trouble reaching any pitch over the outer half of the plate. This would naturally make him extremely vulnerable to breaking balls from RHPs. I don't remember Paulino stepping so badly in the bucket prior to 2007. He had only a mild platoon split in 2006, hitting 339/402/443 against LHPs and 300/346/376 against RHPs, so his extreme split in 2007 convinces me all the more that his swing changed. Former hitting coach Jeff Manto maintained that there was nothing wrong with Paulino's swing, that he was just swinging at the wrong pitches, but the platoon splits make this view seem dubious.
More disturbing was Paulino's defense, which went from poor to awful. He had trouble blocking pitches and handling throws to the plate, and in the second half teams ran wild on him as his throwing suddenly went south. His overall CS % declined to 27% after being closer to 40% in the first half of the season. Much of the time he looked like he wasn't trying, which led to constant booing at home. Unable to deny any longer that Paulino was playing poorly on defense, Jim Tracy fell back on the claim that he had to stay in the lineup due to his pitch-calling abilities. Leaving aside studies showing that catchers have no identifiable effect on pitchers' performance, the staff ERA under Paulino was 4.61, which would have ranked 11th in the NL, so it's hard to see that he did much good. The staff ERA was much higher, and the team's record much worse, with anybody else catching, but the sample sizes were very small and Paulino caught a disproportionate percentage of the games in which the Pirates had their better pitchers on the mound. Tracy did start using Doumit more often behind the plate as the season's first half progressed, but that stopped when Doumit missed much of the second half. The most sensible course would be for the Pirates to platoon Doumit, who hits RHPs well, with Paulino. That would never have happened under Tracy, but John Russell might have different ideas.
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